Janice Mason Steeves

I taught a  workshop this past weekend in the stunningly beautiful arts centre called Visual Arts Mississauga. It's a very contemporary building set on the forested grounds of Riverwood, a 150 acre park in the centre of Mississauga. Our classroom studio had floor to ceiling windows  looking onto a long expanse of snowy  forest.  Ours was a small class of only 5 students which allowed a lot of time for individual attention.  I continue to be amazed at how each person's work is so different from the next.  Always our goal in art is to find our own voice.  I like to remind artists that it's already there, you can see that when you look around the room, even on the first day of a workshop, when people are just beginning to learn about cold wax and oil.  As we continue to grow and work and develop more technical and compositional skills our voices grow stronger and clearer.  There were many breakthroughs in this workshop as ...

Newgrange  48x42" oil/cold wax on panel ©2011 Janice Mason Steeves “ It is not enough if you are busy. The question is, ‘what are you busy about?’ ” ~Henry David Thoreau How can one person do it all?  I have taken classes on getting organized.  I set schedules and goals.  I have no TV.  But I feel that I'm constantly playing catch-up in my life: finding enough studio time, trying to catch-up on my art inventory, organizing my art classes, writing grant proposals, meeting art exhibition deadlines, donating to art auctions, writing blog posts, aiming to keep up on facebook, as well as walking my puppy, exercising, housecleaning and family life.  And occasionally meditating.  I was brought abruptly to my senses last night though when a dear old friend called to chat. We talk now and again but not regularly.  We've known each other since our now grown children were in Grade One. In the spring, she told me she was having very serious ...

Influence of Hue 40 x 40" oil/cold wax on panel ©2011 Janice Mason Steeves Each time I begin a painting, I wonder where it will go.  I begin intuitively,  holding a thought in my mind of what I'd like to express. My   paintings are abstract investigations of landscape, symbols, memory and process.  I know artists who are fully confident that even if they can't see what the finished painting will look like, trust that the process will resolve itself and become a painting.  I can't say that I am so confident.  When I step into the studio each day, I feel to some extent that I'm stepping into the abyss. This is the excitement of abstract painting.  I have no idea where the work will go or how I will get there or if it will resolve itself.   And yet they do, they always eventually do. I love that razor's edge though, between safety and the abyss.  I think it keeps the work honest.  There is some sense of terror there! ...